News of the Week; April 29, 2015

GAMES

1. Valve letting users sell Steam Workshop content

+ Steam allowing paid mods is awesome. Here’s why

+ Steam’s Most Popular Skyrim Mod Is A Protest Against Paid Mods

+ Skyrim paid mod pulled from Steam

+ Valve kills paid Skyrim mods feature: “It’s clear we didn’t understand exactly what we were doing”

+ Gabe Newell to the internet: “You need a more robust Valve-is-evil hypothesis”

2. Valve Announces It’s Handing Its Banning-Keys Over To Game Developers

3. World of Warcraft and the battle against black market gold

4. EA submits to the authority of the Australian Consumer Law

5. Will Hillary Clinton’s historically anti-game attitude harm her 2016 presidential run?

6. Latest Pointless Moral Panic: Minecraft Is Ruining Our Children

7. Indie iOS developer accuses Ketchapp of outright theft

8. British judge rules the brain is a muscle, paving way for esports as sport

9. MMA fighter: game developer used my likeness without permission

10. Call of Duty Gets First Playable Female Lead With Black Ops 3: Black Ops 3 will offer a “gender neutral” story, according to Treyarch.

11. Minecraft adds free female avatar to console versions

12. “For kids’ games, I think it’s out of the question”: Joyful Works’ Basar Simitci draws a line under free-to-play apps for children

13. Rahul Sood’s Unikrn is an eSports betting platform

14. ESPN’s Colin Cowherd really, REALLY doesn’t want to cover video games

15. Killing Floor 2 EULA threatens to revoke licenses for trolls: Online cheaters and “cyber bullies” could lose access to the single-player game, too.`

16. IGDA: Gender, GamerGate and the need for action

17. PlayStation Network grabbing bulk of publishers’ ad dollars – EEDAR

18. Konami delists itself from the New York Stock Exchange

+ What’s Going on With Konami, Kojima, and Metal Gear Solid? Here’s a Timeline

19. Sony on road to recovery thanks to strong PS4 and camera sensor sales

20. Xbox revenues dip 24% thanks to price reduction

21. Halo: The Master Chief Collection problems force official tournament cancellation

22. Microsoft Advertises The Witcher 3 On Xbox With Footage From The PC Version; Fans Not Fooled

23. China expected to soon pass Japan in digital gaming – Superdata

24. ‘Video game developer’ the top career choice for children in Hasbro survey for ‘Game of Life’

25. WoW Patch Adds Katy Perry’s Super Bowl Left Shark

26. These are the games you can play on your new Apple Watch

27. Growing up gaming: The five space sims that defined my youth 

DIGITAL

28. Farmers Unable To Repair Tractors Because Copyright: Never A Side Effect, But Core Intention Of Law

+ Carmakers Want To Use Copyright Law To Make Working On Your Car Illegal

29. Music Licensing Groups Argue That An Homeowners Association Playing Music At The Pool Is A Public Performance

30. MPAA Gets Court To Block Popcorn Time Websites In UK, Despite Judge Admitting The Sites Don’t Actually Infringe

31. Comic Artists Claim Copyright On Metallic Suits And The Three Point Landing

32. DVD Makers Say That You Don’t Really Own The DVDs You Bought… Thanks To Copyright

33. Can You Sue For Copyright Infringement Before It’s Actually Happened?

34. Canadian Government on Copyright Notice Flood: “It’s Not a Notice-and-Settlement Regime” (Michael Geist)

35. A Moral Defense for Copyright Breach?

36. If You’re Promoting Copyright Without Fair Use, You’re Promoting Out And Out Censorship

37. Competition Killer: Why the Copyright Term Extension For Sound Recordings Will Limit Consumer Choice and Increase Costs (Michael Geist)

+ Sound Recording Copyright Extension to 70 Years is a MONEY GRAB! (Cameron Hutchison)

+ Dice Loaded Against Public in Canada’s Copyright Term Extension

+ The Power of Backroom Lobbying: How the Recording Industry Got Their Copyright Term Extension (Michael Geist)

38. Federal Budget proposes statutory privilege for Canadian intellectual property agents

39. German Federal Court says that libraries have a right to digitise their collections

40. 6 Current Copyright Cases More Important Than Blurred Lines

41. Why Balanced Copyright Is Essential For Creativity

42. Aaron’s Law Reintroduced To Try To Reform Dangerous, Broken Anti-Hacking Law

43. UK Tribunal Rules GCHQ Conducted Illegal Surveillance And Must Destroy Legally Privileged Documents

44. Egypt’s Draft Cybercrime Law Undermines Freedom of Expression

45. Woman behind Pakistan’s first hackathon, Sabeen Mahmud, shot dead by unknown gunmen

46. One year on, jailed Ethiopian bloggers are still awaiting trial

47. Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization

48. Facebook Is Shutting Down Its API For Giving Your Friends’ Data To Apps

49. Study Reports Big Drop in Spam Following Canadian Anti-Spam Law Implementation (Michael Geist)

50. ISPs really, really want to be able to share your data

51. Sen. Al Franken offers five take-aways from failed Comcast-TWC merger

52. Web encryption technology is 20 years old. So why isn’t every site using it?

53. Comcast brings fiber to city that it sued 7 years ago to stop fiber rollout

54. Why Bitcoin’s male domination will be its downfall

+ Bitcoin’s Q1: Record VC Investment, Falling Prices, And Slow Consumer Adoption

55. Why Does The US Patent Office Keep Approving Clearly Ridiculous Patents?

56. Google to disarm trolls by buying patents before they become weapons

57. Streaming Overtakes Live TV Among Consumer Viewing Preferences: Study

58. Periscope Saw Over 1 Million Sign-Ins During Its First 10 Days

59. State of the News Media 2015: Call it a mobile majority. At the start of 2015, 39 of the top 50 digital news websites have more traffic to their sites and associated applications coming from mobile devices than from desktop computers, according to Pew Research Center’s analysis of comScore data.

60. A Decade of YouTube Has Changed the Future of Television

61. Why is Snapchat getting into the news business?

62. The Basics Of Open Patent Licensing

63. Futuristic Simulation Finds Self-Driving “Taxibots” Will Eliminate 90% Of Cars, Open Acres Of Public Space

64. Does the digital era herald the end of history?

65. In Memoriam: Greg Lastowka

+ In Memoriam Greg Lastowka (James Grimmelmann)

CREATIVITY

66. Comcast officially abandons Time Warner Cable merger plans

67. Court case reveals feud among CRTC’s upper ranks

68. Competition Bureau supports CRTC’s proposal on video‑on‑demand

69. Trademark Examiner Not Swayed By Katy Perry’s Attempt To Trademark The Left Shark

70. Does a cover band’s use of a singer’s first name infringe trade mark rights in a celebrity’s name?

71. Winter is coming – Print revenue could be headed for another cliff: Media watcher Clay Shirky argues that instead of a gradual decline, print readership — and as a result, print advertising — could be headed for a cliff

72. Effort by Japan to Stifle News Media Is Working

73. Is Garry Trudeau Right About Charlie Hebdo?: Punching Idols (Quinn Norton)

74. Is Investigative Journalism a Joke?

75. Playmakers, The Show The NFL Killed For Being Too Real

76. Who created Caitlin Snow on #TheFlash? According to @DCComics, nobody

77. How Photography Was Optimized for White Skin Color

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